Make It In America

Floor Speech

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Ms. KAPTUR. Thank you so much, Congressman Tonko, for bringing us together and, as always, helping to be a vanguard for jobs in America and the importance of reauthorizing the Export-Import Bank.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today 3 months after my Republican colleagues in the majority have failed, failed, failed in their responsibility to guard our economy by not reauthorizing the Export-Import Bank. Since 2009 alone, the Ex-Im Bank has supported over 1.3 million jobs in our country. Yet today, it has been put into idle, in limbo, as Republicans let it wither on the vine.

Reauthorizing the Bank means jobs--let me repeat, jobs--here in America. Because when exports increase to other countries, American companies hire more workers to meet the added global demand.

Anyone serving in Congress who doesn't understand how important--vital--the Export-Import Bank is to jobs in America and to financing those exports to other nations shouldn't be serving here. You can't live in a cave and hope to compete globally.

Of special note, the Export-Import Bank pays for itself, contributing $675 million alone in 2014 and nearly $7 billion over the last 20 years to the U.S. Treasury. It is well-managed and has an extremely low default rate. Yet today, at a time when America needs more jobs to keep growing, the Republican majority has shifted the country again into idle.

More than 50 countries have an Export-Import Bank--I won't go through them all, China, Japan, Brazil, and Canada--many of our biggest trading partners. In many markets like Mexico, we can't move our products in there without the Export-Import Bank.

Ask Superior Products in Cleveland, Ohio, or A.J. Rose Manufacturing in Cleveland. Or how about First Solar in Perrysburg, Ohio; 98 percent of its exports are tied to Export-Import Bank financing.

Republicans have really put us on the brink of losing thousands more jobs in our country. Look at General Electric and what it just did. It decided because they didn't have Ex-Im Bank financing, they are going to move their operations to Britain and hire 1,000 people. Now, how backwards is that kind of thinking? It could not be any clearer that the shutdown of the Export-Import Bank will cost us so many jobs in this country.

And how demoralizing to people who fight for American jobs and American workers every day. What we know here, and we have seen it operate last week and this week, an extreme wing of the Republican Party has ignored warnings from their colleagues--leading economists, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and countless other organizations--as they hold hostage the Export-Import Bank, frankly, for reasons no rational person can understand. They are even ignoring its charter and the immeasurable good it does for this country and the ability of our companies to compete in foreign markets which are so difficult--so difficult--for them to leap over and to get over the walls, the barriers, that prevent our products from going abroad.

It is our desire that American companies will be able to compete and win. We try for it every day. That is why many of us ran for office. And to have this kind of wrench thrown in the wheel of progress, of economic progress, for our country is something that any rational American simply can't understand. It doesn't have to be this way.

I thank the gentleman so very much for his time.

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